What Do You Get When 4 Christians Judge a Science Fair?

1/27/2015 • ACCESS • Written by Rich Rindfuss

The answer is “awesomeness,” but I’ll understand if that’s not the first thought that came to your mind. Unfortunately in our contemporary culture Christians haven’t always done so well interacting with science or schools in a positive way, but this past week something awesome and a little bit amazing happened: a school invited our church to provide judges for their science fair.

Over the past few years our Access Contemporary Worship Community has developed a partnership with Mark Twain Elementary School. Along the way their science teacher learned that our church has many members with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) backgrounds and asked if I could find volunteer science fair judges from within our congregation. As a result I got to spend several hours this past week with a civil engineer, a molecular biologist, and a chemical engineer from our church judging science fair projects.

The experience was awesome for several reasons. First, the projects were fantastic!

For example, we saw an elegant experiment that used colored Ziploc bags to test how different wavelengths of light affect plant growth, and we learned about the possibility of using current technology to create a Star-Wars-like shield to protect from lasers and bullets (think mirrors and magnets).

Second, a staff member reminded me that you don’t often hear of schools and churches figuring out how to work together, especially around science topics.

Finally, and I think this is why it all worked, you who are part of FUMCR make it a community known for self-giving service where you’re willing to offer yourselves in service to others with no hidden agenda and no strings attached. That’s amazing and awesome!